Characters

’24′ is almost over, but Jack Bauer is about to face one of his toughest challenges yet — trying to start a romantic relationship with Annie Wersching’s Renee Walker.

Jack and Renee take a well-deserved break from kicking bad guy ass to explore their romantic feelings for each other on tonight’s much-anticipated episode.

I recently got a chance to talk with Wersching, who plays Renee on ’24,’ about tonight’s big ep. We also talked about the fan reaction to her character and where Renee might be headed after the show ends. Wersching stayed mum about whether things would actually “work out” between Jack and Renee in the end, but she promised that the show’s final hours would deliver some surprising twists and turns that no one, not even Jack Bauer, could see coming.

How hard is it to say goodbye to ’24′ and to the character of Renee?
It’s incredibly hard to say goodbye to this character and the show too, because I’m involved in it and I got to be a part of it, but also because I’m a fan. It’s hard on both levels.

In your career you hope that there will be great things in the future, but it’s hard to leave this role feeling like it could possibly be the role of a lifetime. Obviously you hope as you go through your career that there’s going to be bigger and better things, but I just love her so much, and it’s such an interesting, in-depth character for a TV show.

As a fan it’s definitely a bummer because I think they still have a lot of good years in them, but I understand wanting to go out on a high note and go on to the movie.

Is Renee going to survive this season and head to the movies with Jack?
Well, you know, it’s ’24′ so you never know. I was lucky I survived one season (laughs). I’m not holding my breath, you know. But at the same time, I don’t think anybody knows any specifics quite yet about who is going to be in the movie. Obviously Jack will be in it, but other than that we haven’t really been told.

I did meet the movie writer (Billy Ray), but other than that I’m just hoping to survive this season and we’ll see how that goes. Surviving is a tough task on this show.

Judging by the previews for the next episode, it looks like Jack and Renee get some down time to be together alone, finally, and they actually kiss for the first time. What does all of that mean for the future of their romantic relationship on the show?

Yeah, it seems like it should have happened before, but it hasn’t. It almost happened in season seven, we had a kiss written in a scene in a hospital, but we didn’t film it, because it felt too cheesy, I guess. It didn’t feel right. But, yeah, I was surprised they leaked that in the previews.

(Tonight’s episode) is definitely an interesting episode in that the threat that Jack and Renee were helping CTU track is basically over. As far as what they were contracted to — he promised to find Hassan and they very sadly and unfortunately didn’t get there in time – he’s done with that. So they’re kind of like “Now what do we do?” (laughs) “How do we hang out with each other without guns involved?”

So they go back to Jack’s apartment and Renee brings up the fact that they made promises to each other throughout this day, but that she understands that you say things in the moment and she say she’s not going to hold him to anything that he’s promised. She’s trying to give him an out.

We shot those scenes over a couple of days, and they were pretty intense. There were definitely moments where we were like, as actors, like, “We’re so much better at running around with guns” (laughs). It was so different for us, but I think it’s going to be a really good episode. It’s going to be something different and something that fans have been wanting to see for a long time. Stuff happens that’s never happened on ’24′ before in terms of the Jack character, and I’m very much involved in that so I’m looking forward to seeing the fan reaction. [click to continue…]

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